


Reunion

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:57:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Okay, seriously, what is this?  A sidekick convention?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt "Ares"  
> Thanks to persnickett, who suggested a story idea that actually _isn't_ this story, but it provided the stepping stone for this to lodge in my noggin.

"A hibachi? Really?"

John continued dumping what Matt could only estimate was a shit-ton of coals into the scarred metal pan of the ancient barbeque before looking up through the resulting cloud of greyish-black dust. He sighed. "Don't tell me. You got an issue with hibachis."

"I don’t have an _issue_. It's just… you know it's not 1972, right? There's these things called _propane grilles_ now. You hook up a little tank—"

"Doesn't cook the same," John said, in that _I'm right and don't even try to convince me otherwise_ voice. 

"Damn right it doesn't cook the same," Matt said. When John cocked an eyebrow, the only concession that he gave that Matt had surprised him, Matt continued, "It's not the same because it doesn't cook evenly, so you end up with blackened husk on the outside and raw meat on the inside. Do you even… do you own a meat thermometer, John? We could end up with food poisoning from that relic from the stone ages—"

"I've been grilling steaks on this relic for thirty years and nobody's dropped dead yet."

"Yet being the operative word," Matt muttered.

John cocked his head, waved a barbeque tong airily. "What's that? Can't hear you. Too busy over here not killing people."

"It's probably lead-lined, too, if the food doesn't kill us we'll end up seizing on the ground—"

"Get the door, Matt."

"—covered in our own bodily fluids—"

"Matthew," John barked, "get the door."

Okay, so yeah. Doorbell. Matt gave the squat little monstrosity of a grille a single glare before he trudged through the house, semi-ticked that their visitor interrupted his rant before he could also point out that the battered old hibachi was probably produced in an Asian sweat shop by malnourished children.

* * *

"McClane home?"

"Yeah, he's just in the back," Matt answered. He opened the door a little wider, gestured the man inside. The hair was mostly white now – not grey, but the bright crisp white of laser paper – and there were lots more wrinkles on the face, but the glasses were the same, as was the stiff-backed stance. There was no mistaking that this was the same man pictured in those old magazines he'd found buried in the bottom of one of the boxes in John's spare room. "I'm Matt," he continued.

"Figured," Zeus said. He wiped his shoes on the little mat outside the door before stepping into the air conditioning, swiveled his head to take in the room.

Ohhhhkay then.

"So," Matt said. "Zeus, huh?"

"Yeah." The wandering eyes lit on him, narrowed. "You got a problem with that?"

Matt held up a hand. "No, I get it. What was it? 'Fuck with me and I'll stick a lightning bolt up your ass'?" 

Zeus rolled his eyes. "McClane's been tellin' tales again."

"You know that McClane, talks a mile a minute. Will _not_ shut up, I can barely get a word in edgewise around here, it's ridiculous," Matt said. "So, you got a son named Ares?"

"You messing with me, boy? 'Cause I might be an old man but I can still kick your ass."

Matt suddenly remembered that this was the guy who wanted to _jump_ off a fucking bridge to catch the bad guys. The guy who literally _ran_ across New York City playing the weirdest game of Simon Says ever, just to help McClane. The guy who went up against Simon Gruber and took a bullet and still came out on top.

Fuck.

"Hey no," Matt said quickly, "just… you want to take a seat or…? Here or maybe in the backyard? Or I could find John. I could just go and… do that." He took a single hesitant step toward the back door. "Right now."

For a minute Zeus looked like he was trying to find something to take offense with in Matt's response, and Matt tensed. Then Zeus's mouth split in a wide grin. "Just messin' with you, kid." 

"Hah," Matt said. "Funny." He hoped his sigh of relief wasn't overly apparently when Zeus took a seat on the lumpy sofa, because okay, sure, he also went up against his own terrorist/thief and he took his own bullet and he came out alive, too – he actually came out alive _and_ with an exceptionally sexy cop boyfriend so he's actually _up_ on Zeus in the Sidekick department – but he still doesn’t like his chances against the guy. It's like everybody McClane knows who's over fifty is a fucking badass. It's really weird. And sort of unfair, since everybody who Matt knows who's _under_ thirty gets winded going up three flights of stairs and spends most daylight hours basking in the glow of a computer screen.

Zeus leaned back in the seat and let his gaze flick around the room, took in the worn easy chair, the threadbare rug. He raised a snowy brow. "Same old place," he said. "Thought all you gay boys were supposed to be fashion designers or something. Don't you have that queer eye?"

"Yeah, I skipped the line when they were handing out decorating tips in heaven," Matt said drily.

"He stayed in the smartass line and got an extra dose of that instead," John said from behind him.

"McClane." Zeus stood, and if his bones seemed to creak Matt sure wasn't going to point it out, and cocked his head. "What the fuck happened to your hair?"

John smoothed a palm over his dome, laughed. "I could say the same thing about you."

"We went and got old when we weren't lookin', McClane," Zeus said. He grinned, turn that sharp gaze back to Matt. "Least one of us is still getting lucky."

"Ohhh, he gets lucky," Matt said. "All the time. The kinky gay buttsex we have? Hours of it. Hours upon hours, can't even tell you."

"You're doing a pretty good job anyway," Zeus said wryly.

"Hey, John," Matt said, "did you remember to put away the sling?"

John cocked a brow. "See what I mean?"

Zeus nodded. "Smartass," he agreed. "Cute one, though."

Matt threw up his hands and escaped when the doorbell rang again. This time the man at the door was pudgy instead of lean, smiling instead of somber, and clutching what looked like a home-made bundt cake. Matt wrinkled his brow, considering. It had been a while since he'd looked through the really, _really_ old magazines at the bottom of that box, but he could swear…

"Um," he said. "Can I help y—"

The man turned the grin on him absently, but his eyes were already moving past him to the living room. He waved a chubby hand. "Heyyyyy, Roy! Lookin' good, my man!"

"Al!" John called. "Get your ass in here before your twinkies melt!"

* * *

Matt cornered John twenty-five minutes later, ducking out of the living room when Al started recounting how John had initially got his attention back at Nakatomi – by throwing a body out of the high rise window onto his police car. The braying laughter of Barnes and the giggles of Sam Coleman were muted but still audible in the kitchen.

"Okay, seriously, what is this? A sidekick convention?"

"What?" John paused in pulling out the beers. "Just thought it would be nice if everyone got together. It _is_ the fourth."

"Yes, I'm aware that today is Independence Day, John. A year ago today I was lying in a hospital bed in agony after getting four pins put in my leg, so the day is kind of seared into my memory."

"I think I did a little something to ease that pain, didn't I?"

Matt tried hard not to, he really did, but he still flushed. If he lives to be ninety – and he's still not sure if being with John McClane is likely to increase or decrease his life span – he will never forget the look in John's eyes that day, the way John leaned over the hospital bed and stroked a hand reverently through his hair, like he was something special, fragile. The first touch of John's hand on his dick, and the worry that a nurse was going to walk in any fucking second, and the way John spoke his name rough and raw, and how _right_ it all was.

"Still," he managed to strangle out, "here we are, a year later, and suddenly everybody who's ever saved the world with you ever is gathered here and—" Matt felt his eyes grow wide. "Oh my god, you know something."

"What? No," John said. He set the beers on the counter, placed his chilled hands on Matt's shoulders instead and grinned when he shivered. "A man can't invite his friends over? Burn a few steaks, toss back a few Buds, shoot the shit?"

When John put it like that, Matt found himself wavering. "Sure, but—"

"Listen, Matt," John said. "After all we went through this time last summer, and then… everything that happened after, with you and me… I just realized life is fucking _short_. We gotta take our pleasures when we can find them, not give a fuck what anybody else thinks. And one of those pleasures is those guys, guys that been through the fire with me and come out the other side."

Matt took a breath. "So you didn't get advance warning on something? The Pentagon didn't inform you that some long lost Gruber brother showed up, Bowman hasn’t called with some Defcon Three terror alert?"

John looked like he wanted to laugh, but to his credit he kept the smirk to a minimum. "No," he said. "Nothing like that. Just some friends getting together to have a few laughs."

"Okay," Matt said. He leaned into John to steal a quick kiss before helping to gather up the beers. "Okay."

* * *

They were just digging into their steaks when the hibachi exploded and the first wave of ninjas vaulted over the fence.

Matt wasn't the least bit surprised.


End file.
